Burf Mob Durability

[PoptartsNinja]

Partly a buff, partly a nerf. With damage and AoE being what it is these days, control has somewhat slipped by the wayside; and the mobs just can't really keep up, especially in the endgame.

 

Rather than giving mobs more HP, or more static resistances, I've got an alternate proposal: Split current mob resistances into passive and active resistances; increase the value of active resistances and then make active resistances suppressable with CC.

 

I think this would be doable without any major engine changes. To emulate mobs getting player-style toggle powers, they could be given auto powers with the "Cancel on [Held/Sleep/Stun]" suppression flags that player toggles currently have. Mobs (or entire enemy groups) could be given some satisfying damage type weaknesses (the same way Minotaurs/Cyclopses are vulnerable to Psi, it's really satisfying smashing an invulnerable Cyclops or Minotaur with a Future Pain), and then some degree of resistance to everything else.

 

So, as a quick example, if we look at the Freakshow Tank Smasher:

Tank Smashers have 25% resistance to Smashing and Lethal, and no resistance to other damage types.

 

Under the proposed change, Tank Smashers would keep 12.5% passive resistance to Smashing/Lethal, then gain 25% active resistance to Smashing/Lethal, and say 20% resistance to negative, toxic, fire, and cold (because they're mostly robots), but leaving them vulnerable to energy and psi (since there's still a human brain in there--and not usually a particularly smart one at that).

 

This would give Tank Smashers 37.5% resistance to smashing and lethal, 20% resistance to negative, toxic, fire, and cold, while still giving them a common, exploitable weakness (energy damage), and the bulk of their resistance would go away if the Freak Tank got held, slept, or stunned.

 

 

But, there's more, which is why I consider this a buff and a nerf: Because suppression would need to linger for a few seconds, that opens the door for something fun: additional sources of suppression. Tank Smashers are highly resistant to smashing and lethal, but only because they can point armor plates at the enemy. Knockdown and Knockback could be made to suppress their smashing/lethal resistance for a few seconds, because the knockdown exposes vulnerable areas that would normally be protected by their junkyard armor.

 

 

As an alternate example: Master Illusionists have 20% lethal and psi resistance, and 20% psi defense.

 

Under the proposed change, they'd keep 10% lethal and 10% psi resist; and 10% psi defense, and gain 20% lethal and psi resistance and 20% psi defense as active autos. They could also pretty comfortably be given 15% smashing, energy, and negative resistance by using telekinesis to block those effects, but remain vulnerable to fire, cold, and toxic damage.

 

That would give them 30% lethal and psi resistance, and 15% to smashing, energy, and negative; but the bulk of their resistance would go away on being held, slept, or stunned.

 

Additionally, their active psi resistance and defence could be suppressed on successful confusion, because they're no longer focused on protecting themselves mentally.

 

 

The end result would be slightly increased TTK on teams that focus on damage to the exclusion of all other factors (while at the same time not significantly harming their effectiveness; all damage teams would still be strong enough to manage this); but give teams with diversified capabilities a bit of a leg-up.

 

And if the expanded suppression works, it could eventually, potentially be made to take damage types into account for boss or AV encounters. As a hypothetical example: a Devouring Earth plant/rock AV that's resistant to fire and lethal unless you hit it with a smashing damage attack, after which it becomes vulnerable to both for a few seconds.

 

Edit: Or for the introduction of mobs with more positional defense, whose defense gets shut down if they're immobilized.

Edited April 25 by PoptartsNinja

[CrusaderDroid]

Given my recent thoughts, I have to express my support for this idea.

 

The one snag here is that this needs to be in tandem with changes to enemy mez protection and resistance. If you can't mez a boss enemy with your current tools, even for a bit, you have no way of interacting with this system and it's just "everyone that matters is universally tougher". For this to flourish, you'd need to reduce mez protection and increase mez resistance such that you can successfully inflict a mez on key targets, even if it's only a short time.

 

I guess you could also do a big retool of all mezzes so they're layered with multiple magnitudes of decreasing duration, but that gets weird and doesn't help the non-control sets that happen to have mezzes.

[PoptartsNinja]

That's a good thought, and could maybe be emulated by giving bosses hold resistance instead of (or in addition to reduced values for) their current hold protection; letting them reduce the duration of hold, sleep, stun, or other CC mags but not protecting them directly.

 

Or making mez protection short-duration high end cost (or no cost but high end requirement) click powers that last 30 seconds or so, which would add value to end drain if the bosses can't pop their mez resist under 50% endurance or whatever.

Edited April 25 by PoptartsNinja

[CrusaderDroid]

3 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

That's a good thought, and could maybe be emulated by giving bosses hold resistance instead of (or in addition to reduced values for) their current hold protection; letting them reduce the duration of hold, sleep, stun, or other CC mags but not protecting them directly.

 

Or making mez protection short-duration high end cost (or no cost but high end requirement) click powers that last 30 seconds or so, which would add value to end drain if the bosses can't pop their mez resist under 50% endurance or whatever.

Ooh. I didn't think about the endurance drain angle. That's pretty good too. I think it's very possible to use the existing mechanics to bump up enemies and make more than just raw damage good at all points of the game.

 

If the need arose for new mechanics, it could be that repeated mezzes slowly build up a long-duration increase to mez protection and/or resistance, such that the weaker mezzes non-control sets get start to fall off and become ineffective. That in turn can help keep Controllers and Dominators relevant in fights against tough enemies since they can crank up their magnitude better and keep enemies mezzed where everyone else can't. I guess the problem there is how many fights outside of AVs can realistically require that, and I don't have a good answer.

[PoptartsNinja]

5 minutes ago, CrusaderDroid said:

I guess the problem there is how many fights outside of AVs can realistically require that, and I don't have a good answer.

 

Currently, very few; but that's down to enemy design. Most of the game's current mobs are built with bosses primarily being ranged or mixed attackers, with lieutenants and minions who are mostly melee to play meat shield for them--but then the minions die instantly and the bosses die a half-second later because they're unsupported. It makes sense for the Family because yeah, the Mooks die for their leadership, but not for every enemy group.

 

If you build mobs like a D&D party (Bosses built exclusively as tanky melee bruisers, LTs built as mixed melee or ranged/support, and minions built exclusively as ranged attackers) the dynamic changes significantly--it's one of the things I like to do to make my AE missions more difficult without giving everything Super Reflexes. Freakshow actually sort-of function this way already, and people usually enjoy them! It's just that their ranged minions are armed with completely ignorable shotguns. If the Freaks snuck in some new ranged minions with 3-5 beam rifle powers then they'd be a more protracted but still enjoyable fight.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Yup this is a great idea imo.

Give baddies toggles

make toggles drop from mez

DPS does what it does best

 

as I stated in another post.

this system already kinda exists in game

the Tsoo sorcerer has a hurricane toggle 

if the tsoo gets held the hurricane toggle drops 

 

yup, I know this isn't the exact thing OP is talking about

i'm showing the mechanic is already there

it just need to be fleshed out to various mobs

 

[PoptartsNinja]

IIRC Tsoo Sorcerers and CoT force fields are click powers that suppress when they're hit with a Mez, which is why they don't immediately toggle them back on. Shutting those down is one of the few good use cases for Hypnosis since its magnitude is high enough to one-shot sleep even CoT bosses. There's a technical limitation that keeps mobs from running toggles (apparently if they can use a power they will, so they'd constantly be toggling their toggles on and then immediately toggling them off again).

 

Suppressable auto powers is my workaround for that limitation, it's something I'm pretty sure hasn't been tried before but that I'm also pretty sure should work.

Edited April 27 by PoptartsNinja

[ThatGuyCDude]

Right, if it's a click power the mob uses it as soon as they are able, and click toggles are turned on and then immediately turned off (that's why henchmen can't deny teleport requests).  The two approaches are to either make them click-activated long-duration powers that are removed on mez (that--since they aren't toggles--can't be clicked off: like how Destiny Incarnates work), or make them automatic powers and use suppression to disable their effects under desired conditions.  Of the two, I think the long-duration click is better, because it forces the mob to spend the endurance to reactivate it after the mez drops (AND animate for it), so they suffer the same 'waking up' lag that players do.

[PoptartsNinja]

The problem with long duration clicks is that mob AI isn't very good; and unless they're given powers with 0 animation time, it's a bigger nerf to mobs than just keeping their current always-on resistances. A long duration click power that lasted say, 90 seconds and had a recharge of 90 seconds would be hard countered by a single use of Hypnosis immediately after it's used, and the mob wouldn't get the power back for 90 seconds. That's a little bit more than a suppression.

 

There's already an enemy group that works like that, too: The Trolls. The Caliban has Invincible and the Ogre has Rock Armor (which are both listed as toggles, oddly enough). But in order to make those powers functional even in the 20s, neither of them suppresses on mez.

 

 

The key to my idea is taking the always-on resistances that mobs already have, giving them a little bit more of the things people already know to expect from them, but then making sure that they also have a little bit less when they're suppressed.

 

I wouldn't be adverse to them getting both, like suppressable auto powers that enhance only their current resistances but then long duration click autos that give them a few bonus resistances; it's just that my intent isn't to secretly gut their current resistances.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

@PoptartsNinja well you sure schooled me but the info is fascinating nonetheless 👍

[PoptartsNinja]

Sorry, the intent absolutely wasn't to school anyone. It's possible things have changed and mobs can handle toggles now, I just remember that being a big issue from way back.

 

It still surprises me how few mobs have things that even can be suppressed by Mez.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

oh i remembered a new one

how about the rad debuff paragon protectors place on you?